Saturday night saw a pretty stellar lineup of bands playing Austin’s Fuel Room, which is a place until that day I had never heard of before. This show was originally scheduled to be at The Pearl Room but that club closed down for good a couple weeks ago so all the shows booked there had to be moved to other venues. Austin’s is way up north in the town of Libertyville and features a sports bar, restaurant, and a fairly good sized club in the back for bands to play in.
Weedeater
Weedeater
Weedeater
Weedeater was the first band to play. I found it odd that I didn’t see Jeff Jelen or Jeff Bachner on the stage and instead there was three metal looking dudes with instruments on the stage. When they didn’t play anything off the Get the Job Done EP I realized this was a totally different band who failed to realize there once was another Weedeater. This one was a really sludgy jam band with a whole lot of low end that sounded like some churning swamp machine. The songs were super heavy and I was digging it. They plodded through a 30 minute set that was an attack on the feint of heart.
The Melvins
The Melvins
The Melvins
The Melvins
The Melvins played next and I was super excited to see them again after the last two outings they had here in town. They started off with a fairly long instrumental intro which really showed off the power of the two drummers. I know I’ve said this before but it bears repeating, those two drummers together are the most powerful force in music today. I swear I could just listen to those guys pound the crap out of their drums for a full hour and never get bored. To be right front and center to feel that force is something that needs to be experienced first hand as words can’t accurately describe it. They played about 45 minutes and never once stopped between songs so it was one huge impact with lots of tempo changes. The band has never sounded better in their 20+ year career and needs to be experienced live to be believed, trust me you’ll never be the same after it.
Down
Down
Down
The club was completely packed by the time that Down took the stage. The band came out and I noticed they had a replacement bass player on stage. It turns out their normal bass player was ill and couldn’t tour so they got someone from CA to fill his shoes for this tour so they didn’t have to cancel their tour.
Down
Down
When they all got on stage the crowd roared with excitement. They opened with “Underneath Everything” from their first album, NOLA, and the crowd were head banging with approval. After the song was done Phil talked to the crowd some and they started playing “New Orleans is a Dying Whore”. The crowd didn’t waste much time before some crowd surfing started and there was plenty of times when nearly the entire place was singing along to the songs.
Down
The band took their time between songs so Phil Anselmo could entertain the crowd, thank them, tell them stories, etc. I’ve always liked this about Down and he also did that in Pantera, it makes the show feel more personal and not like five robots put on stage to spit out songs. At one point he dedicated a song to Dimebag Darryl which got a big round of applause from the full crowd.
Down
After about an hour they took a few minute break and came out for an encore which included one of my favorite Down songs, “Stone the Crow”. The entire crowd was singing along to the chorus to that one. They ended the night with another huge favorite, “Bury Me in Smoke” and the night was through. The entire packed crowd left sweaty, drunk, and satisfied. The band once again delivered an excellent show and gave the people their money’s worth and then some.
